


Transit & Transition 3: Boston, Logan

by CoffeeWithConsequences



Series: Transit & Transition [3]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Airports, Canon Compliant, College, First Love, Goodbyes, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-29 05:07:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13920024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeWithConsequences/pseuds/CoffeeWithConsequences
Summary: Transit & Transition Series #3: Arthur leaves college for the military, and leaves behind his first love and a self he'll never get back.





	Transit & Transition 3: Boston, Logan

**Author's Note:**

> This story is the third installment of my [Transit & Transition](http://archiveofourown.org/series/963117) series. These short stories are non-chronological, and all take place in travel settings, mostly airports and hotels. They are thematically linked, but each functions as a stand-alone piece.

**2004: Boston, Logan**

“You don’t have to park, you can drop me at the curb.” Arthur’s voice sounded too loud, but the car had been silent the entire ten minutes they’d been stopped on 90. 

“OK.” Kenji didn’t look at him, his eyes focused somewhere around the bumper of the Mercedes in front of them.

Arthur tried not to recoil. He’d expected Kenji to argue, to say of course he’d park, and help Arthur with his bags, and walk him in as far as he could go. He’d expected Kenji to say that he wanted every minute they could steal together before Arthur left. Once, those were things Kenji would have said. 

Arthur glanced sidelong, taking in Kenji’s profile. He was just as beautiful as he’d been the first time Arthur saw him, in Organic Chemistry during his second year. His hair was longer now, worn in tiny braids instead of the short cut he’d preferred back then, but his smooth skin, his fiercely intelligent brown eyes, his compact body, the sensitive curve of his mouth--those things were exactly the same as they’d been when Arthur first introduced himself.

They’d both been awkward, their attraction mutual and obvious from the start, but neither of them sure what to do with it. Kenji was already out, was a member of the Gay Student Union, had a rainbow button his backpack. Arthur hadn’t ever put words to his feelings, never made his few hidden high school gropes into part of his identity. It turned out to be their first barrier, after their shyness--Kenji was infinitely kind, soft-mouthed and gentle and patient, but he made it clear from the first time they’d pushed their books and papers aside and made out on Arthur’s dorm bed that he wasn’t interested in casual sex, and he wasn’t interested in anything with someone who couldn’t accept himself for who he was.

It had taken some work for Arthur to convince Kenji he understood, and that he was willing. He’d screwed up his courage and gone to first one Gay Student Union meeting, then another. He’d sought Kenji out and talked to him, not just about chemistry, but about the other things he loved--soccer and movies and sci-fi. The next time a study session turned to making out, Kenji didn’t put the brakes on, and after, when they were both panting, half-undressed, sticky with the result of mutual hand jobs, Arthur asked, slowly, scared, “Are we dating now?” He’d never had a boyfriend before.

It seemed like so long ago now, finally slowly moving again, crawling along the familiar route between Cambridge and Logan in Kenji’s old Accord. The drive to the airport was always a little strange, Arthur feeling an uncomfortable mix of sad and relieved as Kenji facilitated the first leg of his journey home for a holiday or the summer. Kenji was the rare local student, so Arthur always felt like he was leaving him behind. This time he really was.

Each passing semester made it clearer that college just wasn’t enough for Arthur. He did fine, but he craved something more real, more disciplined, more exciting. He stuck it out, but by the middle of his last year he’d decided to join the Marines. He submitted the paperwork before he told anybody, and the reactions were every bit as bad as he’d expected. His parents were worried. His friends were incredulous. Kenji was furious. 

Arthur hadn’t known it until it he told Kenji about his decision, but he’d never actually see his boyfriend angry before. Kenji was occasionally irritated, maybe a little snippy, they sometimes argued, but there hadn’t ever been even a moment that prepared him for the incandescent rage with which he took Arthur’s news. For days, they didn’t speak at all. They were living together, so it wasn’t easy, but Kenji looked right through him. When Arthur finally gave up and demanded to be spoken to like an adult, Kenji tore into him, then spoke only to make cold, biting remarks for days. Finally, Arthur offered to move out, knowing it would be near impossible to find somewhere else for just the ten or so weeks he had left in Cambridge, but not knowing what else to do.

They’d finally talked then, and Kenji had asked him to stay until it was time for him to leave for Georgia, but it didn’t go back to the way it was. They still argued and sniped at each other more than they ever had, and Kenji’s easy kindness was gone. Sex changed, too. They’d learned how to do it together, moving from laughter to unexpected pain to breathless pleasure, mapping each other’s bodies and finding how to wring the most from every moment. They’d always been gentle with each other, if sometimes hurried. They’d kissed for hours, entwined their legs in bed, used each other’s laps as pillows on the rare occasion they had time to watch a DVD. That was all over. Finishing their last semester, they both spent most of their time studying, but when they did come together, exhausted, it was fast and hard, near joyless. They rarely kissed.

The night before, the weight of it being their last night had been suffocating. They’d gone to Arthur’s favorite pho shop and had a near-silent dinner. Kenji made some effort at conversation, inane banter about his finals, but he didn’t try very hard. “We could write,” Arthur suggested. “Email, for sure.”

Kenji had rolled his eyes and sipped his water. “We could,” he said, “but we won’t. Let’s not pretend this is something other than what it is.”

Arthur didn’t answer. He nearly asked Kenji what it was, but he already knew, and he couldn’t stand to hear it said aloud.

They’d had sex more because both of them knew it was expected than because either of them actually wanted it. Arthur had buried his face into the pillow and let Kenji push inside him, not the way they usually did it, but the way that it seemed he wanted. He’d focused on the discomfort, hoping absurdly that Kenji would hurt him, that he’d be sore enough to remember, to feel for his first few days away. When he woke up, he felt nothing.  


“Please talk to me.” Arthur knew it sounded pathetic, but he was beginning to panic. The traffic was clearing up; they’d be at the airport in ten minutes or so. Time really had run out. “Don’t leave it like this.”

Kenji glanced over at him quickly, then returned his eyes to the road, switching lanes unnecessarily. “There’s no other way to leave it,” he said, dull. “Whether we talk or not now doesn’t change anything.”

“Will you really never forgive me?” It wasn’t in Arthur to beg, but he thought begging might be next. “I know you don’t understand--I wish I could explain. But I’m sorry. I’ve said it over and over. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Kenji shot him another sideways glance. “You should stop apologizing,” he said. “You’re not sorry. If you were, you wouldn’t be going.”

Arthur’s jaw tightened. This was ground they’d already covered. “I’m not sorry I’m going. I think it’s the right choice. But I’m sorry I’m leaving you. And I’m sorry I hurt you. I’d make it up to you if I could.” He paused, then added, “I love you.”

Kenji shook his head and exited, the airport signs beginning. “No, you really don’t.” He sighed. “Or maybe you do, in your way.” He squeezed his eyes shut for an instant, then focused again on the road in front of him. “I’d have gone anywhere for you, you know. If you’d decided you wanted to go to grad school in San Francisco, or take a job in London, or open a fucking skateboard shop in Detroit, I’d have followed you. But you chose the one place I can’t go.”

“Georgia, you mean?” Arthur saw a sudden, fleeting glimmer of hope. “I won’t be there for long, it’s just basic-”

Kenji cut him off. “Not Georgia, Arthur. Back into the closet.”

Arthur was silent a moment, watching the terminal letter signs rush by. “I’m not,” he began, but Kenji started again.

“Remember when we went to Pride last year?”

Arthur did. He hadn’t wanted to go, had found the whole thing kind of crass, but he’d let himself be convinced. He and Kenji had ended the day shirtless, faced and chests covered in glitter, kissing desperately on Beacon Street. He had a picture, somewhere, taken of them that day. They were completely happy.

“I want to remember you like that,” Kenji continued. “Drunk and sunburned and smiling.” He shook his head again. “But you’ve got this whole other person in there, this person who is going to be a Marine. And I don’t want him, Arthur. I don’t.”  


Kenji sounded sad, more than anything. He sounded sad and tired and completely, unequivocally finished. Arthur didn’t say anything else as they pulled into the departures lane.

Kenji got out, helped Arthur get his two suitcases from the back, lined them neatly up at the curb. Arthur was afraid that Kenji wouldn’t kiss him, that this cold space between them would be the last thing he felt. But that was not who Kenji was. Once the bags were squared away, he pulled Arthur to him, wrapping his arms around Arthur’s body hard, burying his face in Arthur’s newly short hair. “I love you,” he said. “I am so happy I got to be with you.” 

Arthur felt the tide behind his eyes and blinked hard. Cars around them were honking as he pulled back, meeting Kenji’s lips. They kiss was long and soft and slow, as if the people waiting behind them didn’t matter. As if the danger and pain in front of Arthur didn’t matter. As if nobody’s heart were broken. Neither of them pulled away until they had to breathe, and when Arthur looked at Kenji, his eyes were shining. 

“I’ll miss you,” Arthur said, his voice cracking.

Kenji nodded. “I’ll miss you, too.” He straightened himself up and walked back toward the driver’s door, nodding a quick apology to the woman in the SUV trying to get into their space. “Take care of yourself. Don’t let them change who you are.” He didn’t look at Arthur again as he got in and pulled away.

The flight was delayed once and then twice as Arthur sat at the gate, staring at nothing. As the minutes passed, he thought about the huge risk he was taking. What if he wasn’t cut out to be a Marine? He hadn’t ever been big or strong, or particularly tough. What if they tore him apart? What if he hated it? And how long would it be before anybody touched him again? Not even loved him, as Kenji did--that he couldn’t even contemplate--but touched him at all? His lips were dry, but he stubbornly refused to reach his tongue out to wet them--once he did, he would no longer be able to tell himself Kenji’s kiss still lingered there.

It took only a few weeks before Arthur realized just how much Kenji had to do with him holding together as well as he had. The program he’d joined, working with the new dream sharing technology, wasted no time starting recruits in lucid dreaming, and several of Arthur’s new brothers in arms were nearly immediately destroyed by their own subconscious landscapes, forced to leave before they’d even begun. Arthur’s weren’t pretty, either, but there was always something calm about them, some sign of being loved, of being taken care of. Nothing that anybody but Arthur could see, or feel, but always there. There was always just enough to hold on to. 

Arthur finally wrote Kenji a letter, saying again that he was sorry, and that he was now realizing how wonderful Kenji had been to him, and how he hadn’t appreciated it the way he ought to. Embarrassed at having sent it, he sent a second two days later, this one filthy, detailing the ways his body missed Kenji, what he’d like to be doing to him. Kenji didn’t answer either one.

All of Arthur’s team brought loved ones, past or present, into their dreams. If anybody was suspicious of the beautiful Black man who tended to show up around Arthur, always half-smiling and calm, nobody mentioned it. Arthur never explained. Eventually, the backbreaking labor of staying sane while being sleep deprived and psychologically tortured took all Arthur’s energy, and he didn’t think much of Kenji while awake anymore. A while after that, Kenji started to disappear from Arthur’s dreams as well. Arthur never concentrated on making him go, he just went.

After Arthur met Mal and Dom, he never really thought of Kenji. They overwhelmed him, saving him from what was sure to be a slow death in the Marines and building him into their plans, their purpose. They groomed him and parented him and befriended him and turned him from a kid with sticking out ears in jeans and a hoodie to a beautiful man in a beautiful suit. The Cobbs had easy, open attitudes toward sex, which Arthur inherited, but also a closed, jealous, all-encompassing love that forced even Arthur to watch from the outside. Though they never meant to, Dom and Mal believed that real love was only for them. It would never have occurred to either of them that it was something Arthur ever had, or ever wanted, or even that it was something of which Arthur would be capable. Mal and Dom filled the holes in Arthur that his time in the Marines had carved out--filled them with wine-drenched dinner parties and all-night conversations, with exciting work, with real love. They made him their family. But neither of them ever considered what had been there before, what they were displacing. Eventually, neither did Arthur. In the Cobbs, he’d found the things he was looking for, the purpose and excitement. He never gave much thought to what he’d lost.

**Author's Note:**

> Please come visit me on [Tumblr](https://coffeewithconsequences.tumblr.com/) or read the rest of my fic here at [Archive of Our Own](http://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeWithConsequences/works)!


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